Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Fw: STOP Primary Residence Protection Plan

Finally, someone with the courage, intelligence, and expertise is suing to prevent the collection of property taxes. The suit is based on violations of the uniformity clause of the PA Constitution.

Below are two E-mails I have received from George Kuney that are self-explanatory. As George, explains...he is not looking for financial support from you or me, instead he needs examples of the system's unfairness...that he can present as part of his suit. He hopes to have a class action suit that will rise to the Supreme Court and extend his legal attack on the corrupt property tax system to the entire state.

If you have examples of unfairness and lack of uniformity in the property tax assessment and collection system, please contact George at the E-mail address at the bottom of this note. You may even call him if you wish as he has provided his phone number for us to share with you.

At the very least, send words of encouragement to George and thank him for his efforts.

Linked to below this blog post are George Kuney's Tax Appeal and his Pre-trial memo. Please read them. But, first, read his memos below to get acquainted with him.

STOP has been hoping and praying that some able person would step forward and attack the PA property tax and equity theft mess in court. We're pleased George has decided to do it and that he could not be disuaded by a property tax assessment reduction on his property.

My name is George Kuney.I am challenging the right to collect property taxes in Philadelphia in an upcoming appeal.

I have filed my pre-trial memo and have been offered a very generous settlement option; however, I am more interested in solving the underlying problem for everyone as opposed to just fending for myself.

I am therefore contacting you to see what support and interest there might be for moving forward with the current matter and thereafter a class action suit.

If you have any interest in offering any guidance, support, or information that might be of assistance, please contact me.

If you know of anyone who is interested in this matter and could be of help, please forward this email to them and/or provide me with their contact information.

I am attaching the "Tax Appeal Attachment" submitted to the BRT Board and my pre-trial memo that was submitted by the deadline of Aug 6.

A quick review of those documents will show that the central point is the non-uniformity issue. The problem I face is to be able to prevail without an expert witness.

I do not need money, I need facts that do not depend on an expensive expert witness. I need "public facts" that there is not uniformity in the system.

Please feel free to pass these documents and my emails to others who are interested in this cause. The real gambit in my apporach is to put the City in the following no-win situation: a) If they give me all my taxes back, they set a precedent, or b) If they don't, then I have pursued all my options on this level and can move on to a class action suit.

I need to make the effort at this level credible so that I can prevail in higher courts.

Hi George: I'm delighted to hear about your court action on property taxes. STOP is a grassroots group that has been fighting the property taxes on primary residences since January, 2002. We have lots of information that may be helpful in your suit at http://www.grandoldusa.com/

STOP is not a formal organization..and has no treasury. However, a number of our STOP supporters have indicated a willigness to help if someone is filing a suit...but as a volunteer I can't get in the middle of that.

What I can do is forward your E-mail to them and invite them to contact you...and if

they feel comfortable supporting your efforts financially...that will be fine with me. You and they can work that out.

Since none of us know you...is there a way you can verify to me the information about the suit, when it was filed...any articles in the news media about it...in other words documentation about what you state in your e-mail.

If so, send it along to me and when I feel comfortable with your credibiity (no disrespect, we just need to be careful on not misleading our group's supporters of the cause) I will add it to your e-mail when I send it to them.

I would enjoy reading on what grounds you are attacking the property tax. Perhaps I can add some thoughts and info to what you're doing.

You now have my e-mail address. Keep in touch regularly and let me know any progress.